Constructed example / Not client work

Should the company move its customer-support AI pilot into production?

This sample applies an Independent Initiative Review to a pilot seeking production funding. The company, figures, evidence, and circumstances are fictional.

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Case type: Illustrative sample
Decision: Pilot to production
Opinion: Release funding in stages

This case is entirely fictional. It shows the form of the work and does not describe a client, a real company, or a completed engagement.

01 / Context

A positive pilot leads to a larger commitment.

A fictional B2B software company tested an AI assistant that drafts replies to routine support requests. Twenty invited agents used it for eight weeks. Average first-response time fell, the agents responded positively, and the executive sponsor now wants production funding.

The proposal connects the assistant to live customer data, extends it to 160 agents in three markets, signs a two-year vendor contract, and reduces planned support hiring. The CFO owns the decision; the CEO sponsors it.

Commitment requested: $1.2m production budget and a two-year vendor contract
Intended result: Lower handling cost without reducing customer satisfaction
Decision due: Before the next annual planning cycle
Alternatives: Full rollout, staged rollout, a narrower test, non-AI workflow improvements, or delay

02 / Investment case

The claims carrying the investment case.

The expected return depends on usage, correction work, production cost, integration, customer acceptance, and accountable operation.

1
Routine support work is substantial enough to justify the investment.
2
The assistant produces usable drafts across ordinary production cases.
3
Agents use it without creating unmeasured review and correction work.
4
The proposed use of customer data meets contractual and privacy requirements.
5
The team can integrate, monitor, support, and contain the service.
6
Total production cost stays below the handling cost it removes.
7
The company can tell whether the benefit lasts after rollout.

03 / Load-bearing assumptions

Four claims carry most of the production case.

AssumptionEvidenceConfidenceExposure

Support agents will use the AI-assisted workflow for routine requests.

Invited pilot agents used it frequently each week. Ordinary production onboarding has not been tested.

Partially supported

Usage may fall when dedicated pilot support ends.

The system will reduce handling cost at production volume.

The estimate includes model and infrastructure costs. It excludes correction and escalation work.

Weakly supported

The expected saving may disappear once all human work is counted.

Answer quality will remain acceptable across the intended request types.

The system performed well on a curated test set that excluded complex billing and cancellation cases.

Partially supported

Poor answers could reach customers in high-consequence cases.

The current team can operate and monitor the production service.

The proposal names no incident owner, review rota, or monitoring budget.

Unsupported

Failures may go unnoticed or add unplanned work for support leads.

04 / Exposure

The cost case omits work that may surface only after rollout.

The financial model removes planned hires but leaves out the pilot team's correction work. Its production saving has therefore not been observed under ordinary operating conditions.

After a full rollout, support teams could absorb extra work while headline response time still improves. That would delay discovery. The proposed two-year vendor term would also make a change of course more expensive.

ConsequenceMaterial
The saving and staffing plan may be wrong.
Evidence gapHigh
The pilot did not record manual work.
Time to discoverMedium to high
Extra work can disappear into normal support activity.
Difficulty of reversalHigh
The vendor contract and rollout would be costly to unwind.

05 / Alternatives

The company has credible options short of full rollout.

Full approval

Release the full budget and sign the proposed vendor contract.

Evidence does not support it

Staged production

Deploy in one market for two defined request categories, with explicit measurement.

Supportable with conditions

Narrower test

Extend the pilot to measure correction work and performance on high-consequence cases.

Credible fallback

Non-AI improvement

Improve routing and knowledge retrieval without automated draft generation.

Retain as an option

06 / Conditions

A staged release requires evidence from ordinary operations.

C-01

Use

At least 80% of eligible agents use the workflow each week for six consecutive weeks without dedicated pilot support.

C-02

Human work

Median correction and review time remains below four minutes per completed case, including escalations.

C-03

Economics

Measured model, infrastructure, support, and oversight cost remains below 60% of avoided handling cost.

C-04

Containment

Billing, cancellation, and account-access cases stay outside automated drafting until a representative evaluation is approved.

C-05

Ownership

Before launch, named owners accept responsibility for performance, incidents, vendor changes, overrides, and retirement.

C-06

Next decision

After eight production weeks, the CFO reviews the evidence before rollout in a second market or any longer vendor term.

OpinionRelease funding in stages

Approve a bounded production step and withhold full-rollout funding.

The pilot shows useful drafts for selected agents handling routine cases. The evidence is insufficient on production economics, operating capacity, and customer exposure at the proposed scale.

Approve deployment in one market for the reviewed request categories. Withhold the two-year vendor contract and retain planned support capacity until conditions C-01 through C-05 are met. The CFO should make the continuation decision after eight production weeks.

07 / Decision record

The decision owner receives this record.

Material reviewed: Pilot evidence, production proposal, cost model, vendor terms, evaluation summary, and stakeholder accounts.
Outside scope: Source code, security testing, legal opinion, and independent verification of the pilot data supplied.
Strongest evidence: The assistant produced useful drafts for routine cases represented in the pilot.
Main weakness: The business case excluded the human work needed to produce the reported result.
Decision owner: CFO.
Next decision: After eight production weeks and before a second-market rollout or long-term vendor commitment.

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